Grisham is solid on The Firm
Author convinced show based on his bestseller will be a success
John Grisham says his family members still measure time in terms of “B.F.” and “A.F.”: before and after the publication of his 1991 pageturner The Firm.
After all, the novel — about a young legal eagle who takes on a mob-riddled Memphis law firm — sold millions of copies, spawned a hit Tom Cruise movie, and allowed Grisham to quit his job as a lawyer and become a full-time writer with a rabid fan base that still eagerly awaits his books.
Given all that, the author doesn’t sound like he’s losing any sleep over how viewers will receive The Firm TV series, debuting Sunday at 9 p.m. on NBC and Global TV (subsequent episodes will air Thursdays at 10).
“I’m not worried because I’m convinced the show is going to be a success. But also, personally, I’ve had so much success because of that one book that nothing could, you know, worry me about it now,” Grisham said in a recent interview.
“What we’re doing now . . . to me is just pure fun to watch it on TV.”
The author’s stamp of approval is all over the Toronto-shot series, which picks up10 years after lawyer Mitch Mcdeere and his wife Abby entered the witness protection program at the conclusion of The Firm.
Grisham still sounds stung by the “painful experience” of adapting his 1993 thriller The Client for TV (he calls the 1995 effort a “dreadful show”) and had not considered small-screen treatment for The Firm until he read the script from Lukas Reiter, who has worked on Boston Legal, Law & Order and The Practice.
“For me I’m so looking forward to January the 8th to sit back with my family and watch (the two-hour pilot) of The Firm,” said Grisham. “I’m not worried about success or failure — I want to see (it) because of all the hard work that Luke and the cast and crew have put into it, and it deserves a good audience — but I’m not worried about them.”
Grisham, an executive producer on the new show, says he doesn’t read the script for every episode but passes along “big ideas” about the direction the series might take. And while he doesn’t dwell on a book once he’s done writing it, he likes where The Firm has taken his characters. “The cool thing about the TV show is that each week you get to watch Mitch in action as a real lawyer with different cases. And that’s what I’ve always wanted to see on television.” Landing the role of Mitch was somewhat serendipitous for Josh Lucas, given a fascination for the law fuelled during his research for 2011’s The Lincoln Lawyer and a recent jury duty stint. “It was so dramatic and almost unbelievable to experience and think, ‘This is true and this is happening and I’m watching it,’” Lucas said of his time as a juror. “We put a man away for life. He was violent and dangerous in the courtroom. It was crazy. . . .” Grisham says it’s “very smart” to set the series a decade after the book. “You had to have at least 10 years to get away from the very real threat that Mitch faced when he blew up the law firm in Memphis and because he was a marked man,” he said.
“He’s tired of witness protection, he’s tired of, you know, life on the run. He’s going to . . . say: ‘To hell with it, I’m going to have a normal life.’ And you really want that to happen, but you’re really worried about what is going to happen.”